Prayer time: Between practice and experimentation

Prayer time: Between practice and experimentationMarie?Laure Boursin, Translated from the French by John AngellIn Ethnologie française Volume 168, Issue 4, 2017, pages 623 to 636

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Marie?Laure Boursin, Translated from the French by John Angell, «Prayer time: Between practice and experimentation», Ethnologie

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Ethnologie française, XLVII, 2017, 4

Prayer Time: Between Practice and ExperimentationMarie-Laure Boursin

Aix Marseille Université/Sciences Po Aixidemec/cherpa [email protected]@sciencespo-aix.frTranslated from the French by John Angell

In a supposedly “secularized” country such as France, prayer does not necessarily involve religious sentiments nor, conversely, is prayer the only means of expressing religious sentiments. Just as it is possible to recite the Christian Lord’s prayer out of “habit” or “tradition” at a midnight mass or think of oneself as a “believer” without regularly engaging in prayer. Social science researchers who have investigated the ways in which individuals and groups adapt religious practices to “modernity” have revealed new forms of religious experience that integrated individualization, subjectivation, and sophistication [Willaime, 2006; Pollack, 2014]. In an early twentieth-century review of the anthropology of prayer, Marcel Mauss traced the evolution of prayer from its first emergence to indi-vidualization, including regressions such as material-ized prayers. Mauss ultimately concluded “all prayer is always to some degree a Credo. Even when it is devoid of meaning, it expresses a minimum of ideas and religious sentiments. In prayer, the believer acts and thinks” [Mauss, 1997: 358].

In addition to functioning as a way of transforming meaning by enunciating belief,1 prayer is also a means of acting on beliefs. For this reason, prayer is among the “modalities” by which believers affirm their faith, and, as de Certeau argues, “its contents” [de Certeau, 2004: 260]. Prayer is not simply an “object of anthro-pology” [Rivoal, 2003], although studying it does raise questions about the dizzying array of forms used by

humans to express religiosity. It means being capable of both participating in an orthopraxis and detaching oneself from it. It is precisely this process of stepping in/stepping out that this admittedly ambitious article by explaining the practice—and non-practice—of prayer among Muslims in France. The study focuses primarily on ṣalât, an obligatory affirmation of Muslim faith and the second of five pillars of Islam. Observant Muslims perform ṣalât up to five times per day and during Friday prayers in the communal atmosphere of mosques, where it is called ṣalât al-joumou’a. Several other forms of recommended Muslim prayer exist, including prayers of request, dou’â [Gardet, 1970: 116], that Guy Monnot calls private devotions [1989], as well as invocations such as dhikr and wird. Dou’â can involve both recited invocations or personalized requests, whereas dhikr entails rhythmic repetitions of God’s name and wird consists of a group of invocations that are typically either Qur’anic verses, names of God, or prayers from the Prophet Mohamed. I have analyzed supplementary prayers, which are beyond the scope of the present article, in an earlier study [Boursin, 2015].

Canonical Islamic prayers are often described as codified rituals that are effective only when performed with great precision [Chelhod, 1959: 162]. In this sense, they are what Louis Gardet calls “‘a liturgy’ in which every act […] and word is pre-determined,” although variations exist that depend on the specific Islamic rite of maḍhab.2 [1970: 121] In theory, however,

ABSTRACT

This article explores variations in how Muslims in France perform the canonical Islamic prayer, ṣalât. The study reveals how different prayer contexts–individual versus collective, at home or in a mosque–affect daily religious observance. Instead of a continuous, invariable dimension of worshippers’ lives, prayer is sometimes interrupted or suspended and can also be the focus of experimentation that reveals worshipers’ fluctuating beliefs.

Keywords: Prayer. Islam. Religious practices. Variations. Belief.

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Marie-Laure BoursinII


every Muslim should “logically pray in the same way” [Rivoal, 2003: 102]. Patterns of French colonization and migrations to France have resulted in a Muslim population in France that is primarily of North and Sub-Saharan African and Turkish origin,3 although this has grown to include converts from Catholicism, Judaism, and even agnosticism. Like the Ummah—the universal community of Muslims—the contemporary Muslim community in France is remarkable for its cul-tural diversity.

This study is partly inspired by a desire to deter-mine to what extent Muslim religious practices in France reflect this diversity. It is also true that Islamic prayer practices have not been well studied by anthro-pologists [Haeri, 2013; Laakili, 2014] despite the fact that, as Hassan Rachik observes, that these practices merit “dense and complex description.” [2009: 590] Anthropological studies have used “specific techniques or procedures” [Headley, 1994: 7] to investigate cul-tural phenomena, including several interesting studies of religious experience in Egypt, Iran, and the Indian Ocean region [Mahmood, 2001; Haeri, 2013; Parkin and Headley, 2015]. These studies confirm that in addi-tion to demonstrating cultural differences, investiga-tions of religious practices also reveal ways in which practitioners experiment with their beliefs.

A particularly small small number of ethnographic studies have investigated Islamic prayer in minority contexts, including in France. Paradoxically, prayer is currently perceived as an important “indicator of vis-ibility” for Muslim populations in France, as shown by the controversy surrounding “street prayers” [Göle, 2015: 85-105]. Earlier social science studies have interpreted prayer as an indication of Muslims’ level of religiosity and therefore as a criterion for catego-rizing Muslims as either practicing or non-practicing [Dargent, 2010].

My purpose is to question these standardized per-spectives by demonstrating the considerable variability in how Muslims in France perform the canonical prayer, ṣalât, either individually or in groups, at home, or in mosques or prayer halls. Based on descriptions of diverse practices and experimentations of gesture and location, this study is situated within an anthropology of detail [Piette, 1996] that seeks to foreground partic-ipant perspectives concerning “small daily details.” My ultimate purpose is to describe the factors that influ-ence variation in the practice of Muslim prayer across a range of contexts in order to highlight the subtleties that underlie contemporary prayer.

I collected data for this study during field-work among Muslim families of North African and Comorian origin in the early 2000s and a period of immersion in non-profit religious institutions such as mosques and Qur’anic schools in Marseille and the surrounding areas and in the city of Bourges. My research participants identified as Muslims and pro-fessed belief in Allah and the Prophet. Their religious practices varied widely and were not a criterion for participation in this study. Nearly every participant also reported observing Ramadan and avoiding the con-sumption of pork and over half affirmed observing daily prayer at the time of the study.

��Prayer: A Highly Variable Practice

Many participants affirmed their belief that prayer, whether canonical or personal, was primarily a way of initiating “contact with God.”4 As they described it, praying allows them to communicate with God and to be close to him, a process codified through the ges-tures and words of ṣalât.5 Dounia, 17, a high school student in Bourges and the oldest of several siblings asserted “you are closest to him when you prostrate yourself.” Although this means of “contacting” God is distinct from ordinary human communication, some participants perceived similarities to the extent that prayers are addressed directly to God and God occasionally responds. God “gives” or “sends” answers to requests in the form of “signs” that are expressed either directly or through dreams or feelings. Larbi, 23, a third-year business student at essec (a prestigious Paris-area business university), offered the following recollection6:

Once when I had a terrible headache and was praying, I put my head on the ground and repeated “I don’t want to have a headache anymore” […] three times. I got up and I didn’t actually have a headache any more. After that I burst into tears. Ok, you could say it was a purely psychological, psychosomatic reaction because my brain released a hormone or enzyme that blocked my head-ache. After it was spoken, it happened. And my interpre-tation is that it was really God who answered me and He arranged for the enzyme to be secreted at that moment, which resulted in… For me, the random chance, the koun fayakoun, is “that it be and that it become so,” when you demand something, it is realized, it is realized by his will. […] Every scientific process is thus quite simply a divine process, a different story.

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IIIPrayer Time


Mohamed, 15, Dounia’s brother, contends that pros-tration is a special moment during which a worshipper can ask God anything he or she wishes. During our interview he referred to prayer as resembling a “dia-logue,” adding:

In fact, you can’t talk with God because he is not on Earth. Through the intermediary of the Qur’an, that’s a way of speaking with him. It’s like a letter that he sent to us and praying is a way of answering him. The Qur’an is God’s word, like he wanted to teach us something. It’s

Prayer Chart

Phase Sequence GesturesLocation:

Mosque Home

Phase IPreparing the prayer ritual

Ablutionswuḍû’

– Statement of intention, niya– Washes hands: x3– Rinses mouth: x3– Rinses nose: x3– Washes face: x3– Washes right arm to elbow: x3– Washes left arm to elbow: x3– Runs wet hands through hair, back and forth– Cleans interior and exterior of ears– Washes right foot up to ankle– Washes left foot up to ankle

Ablution room or home

bathroom

Bathroom

Impure space

Phase IIPreparing to enter into contact with God

Beginning– {Unfolds and places prayer rug}, Statement of intention– Recites a takbir (allahou akbar, God is great)– Recites the invocation of the beginning

Prayer hall

Living room or bedroom

Phase IIIExecution: Contact with God

Prayer

First unit- raka‘ât

– Recites the sura al-fâtiha, standing position: qiyâm– Recites several verses– Bows: rukû‘– Rises from previous position– Prostrates self: sujûd– Adopts sitting position: qu‘ûd– Prostrates self: sujûd– Stands: qiyâm

Second unit- raka‘ât

– Recites the sura al-fâtiha, stands qiyâm– Bows: rukû‘– Rises from previous position– Prostrates self: sujûd– Adopts sitting position: qu‘ûd– Prostrates self: sujûd

Phase IVTransition from communication

Final salutation

– Adopts sitting position: qu‘ûd– Recites salutations– {Extends right index finger}, Recites the shahâda (affirmation)– Turns face towards the right– Turns face towards the left

Pure space

Phase VEnd: End of contact, Return to inter-human contact

End of prayer – Rises, {stores the prayer rug, removes veil}– Leaves room

Prayer hall

Living room or bedroom

Deconsecration of space

Legend: {…}: non-systematic

Table – Simplified depiction of the ṣalât. Example of a two-unit [raka‘ât] prayer.

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Marie-Laure BoursinIV


like a father who wants to tell us something. That’s how I see it.

The analogy of a filial relationship with God who is not “really” on Earth allows Mohamed to sustain his belief that he is directly communicating with God, in spite of the fact that it cannot “really be said” whether or not we speak to him. He answers us, “but not really” directly. Anthropological research enables us to analyze these different ways of experimenting with prayer that underlie this “not really,” contributing to our under-standing how individuals affirm their beliefs.

Different Ways of Doing Prayer

The effectiveness of ṣalât depends on how well it is performed [Mahmood, 2001: 830]. If worshippers do

not respect the rules, God may not accept their prayers, an outcome of which supplicants are not necessarily aware:

Who knows? It’s God who knows if the prayer is accepted. On the other hand, […] if it’s due to ignorance, it is pardoned (Abdel, 27, from Marseille and originally from the Comoros7).But all that is needed is a good prayer for God to allow us into Heaven, just one, but you don’t know which one (Aïcha, 50, from Marseille, originally from Algeria8).

According to Tradition,9 the existence of diverse Sunni maḍhab does not invalidate collective prayer. A worshiper is therefore allowed to pray with an imam from another branch of Islam. Being affiliated with a particular branch is often associated with specific cul-tural origins—North Africans are primarily Malekites, Comorians, Shafi’ites, and Turks, or Hanefites, for example. In France, the body positions adopted by worshippers during prayers in mosques are one illus-tration of this variability (See Illustrations 1 and 2).

Illustration 1 – Different postures observed in the standing position, qiyâm.

15 septembre 2017 4:27 PM – Revue Ethnologie française n° 04/2017 – Collectif – Revue Ethnologie française – 210 x 270 – page 626 / 172 - © PUF -

Illustration 2 – Different postures observed in the sitting position, qu’ûd.

15 septembre 2017 4:27 PM – Revue Ethnologie française n° 04/2017 – Collectif – Revue Ethnologie française – 210 x 270 – page 626 / 172 - © PUF -

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VPrayer Time


Very few of my participants mentioned that they belonged to a maḍhab. Many of them learned to pray in their families or during classes in religious institutions with which their families shared cultural affiliations. In France, however, guidance about prayer practices is available on the Internet or in speeches, meaning that worshippers often witness the diversity of Islamic practices. Leïla, a 27-year-old convert,10 reported that she used to move her index finger in a circular pat-tern while reciting the shahâda at the moment of the final salutation, but that she changed her technique after reading that the proper movement was up-and-down. Dounia and Mohamed’s mother, Myriam, who is 40 years old, 11 also mentioned finger movement, explaining “Some people turn it like this. But I’ve always seen it done from right to left, and that’s what I’ve always read. So I don’t see why I would make spi-rals! But whatever!” [Laughs].

Participants’ discourses often implied that such dif-ferences were simply “details” and that all Muslims pray the same way “in the end.” In social interactions, however, diversity is sometimes expressed through competition between rival orthopraxes. Mounir, a 26-year-old Comorian enrolled in a Master’s program in Arabic, argued “there is no big difference except for gesture,” although he later pointed out that young men returning to the Comoros after studying in Saudi Arabia were “conservatives”12 who tried to impose a specific gestural style and prayer “habits.” Aïcha related in an interview that a woman had approached her to tell her that she had not prayed “correctly “the first time she prayed in a mosque:

It was the Lord who guided me to this path, which gave me a strange feeling […]. I didn’t even know about mosques, not even the one in the city I was born in, because I never set foot inside it. And I cried a lot when I found myself there that day […]. You get this different feeling that God loves us and has chosen us for that. As if you arrive somewhere and don’t know how to pray, or even how to begin, and you don’t know how to do the ablutions. Nobody had ever taught you or showed you. And then, well, you might be embarrassed because you’re ashamed, first of all because you don’t know any-thing. And then when I looked I was surprised to see all those people praying. I observed them and said to myself that this was so beautiful because of how they were all lined up doing prayers at the same time. Yes, it is very moving—everybody bending down at the same time and rising after prostrating themselves and standing up together. […] When I finished that prayer, a woman

came to tell me that I didn’t do it right. And I remember that I came home and phoned my mother and I was angry. I cried on the phone and said it was all her fault. Because she started praying when she was really young, 7 years old, and she never taught her own daughters to pray or made us pray or told us “you have to pray, prayer is mandatory.” […] She never told us about it. So I was a bit angry. But with time I got over it, although I was furious with her at the time. When you start praying what is moving is that you feel really close to God, people feel very close to God.

And then one day while I was observing prayer in the mosque, I was still kneeling behind the back row of women and she came up to me and said “Did you like it? Did you see how beautiful it is? I’ll leave you for a few minutes and then I’ll come back. I have to go see a woman [Senegalese] who isn’t making the gestures correctly.” When she returned she said to me in a low voice: “They don’t really know how to act—they adapt Islam to their culture.”

Although the different techniques of performing the maḍhab are all theoretically “valid,” their existence suggests that prayers are culturally specific and that practices that do not conform to a particular tech-nique attract attention. Variations in how ṣalât is per-formed involve culturally specific habits and norms that are not necessarily related to approaches to the maḍhab. Although participant narratives tend to mini-mize variations in order to suggest religious unity—the Ummah—, diversity emphasizes a difference as soon as it becomes tangible in context. This dynamism, which can be observed in the interactions described earlier, is precisely what shapes their practices and alterities.

Variations in Individual Prayer

The prayer practices of individuals who pray reg-ularly can also vary over time if they are exposed to a new approach or attempt improve their technique. For example, Myriam began praying when she was 20 years old. In explaining the importance of the “proper gestures,” she admitted that it took her a long time to master the gestures, especially maintaining a perfectly straight back when bowing. She reported that only after these moves became “habits” did she feel that she could pray “fully.” Saba Mahmood has observed that enacting “conventional” gestures depends on a “spon-taneous expression of emotion,” a form of spontaneity learned only through apprenticeship [2001: 833]. To be “completely inside of one’s prayer,” a worshipper

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Marie-Laure BoursinVI


ceases to pay attention to each gesture by automatizing the moves. In studies of private prayer, Niloofar Haeri points out the importance of individual timeframes in ethnographic studies of religious practices, such as the length of time a worshipper has practiced. Heari believes that the ṣalât varies according to a worshipper’s age [Haeri, 2013: 9].

My participants were well aware that they did not systematically perform their prayers “like you’re sup-posed to” because they were still preoccupied by daily routines and “weren’t able to think about anything else.” They also expressed awareness that this prevented them from being “before God” as though they were communicating with him (Yamina). I had the oppor-tunity to observe individual variations and experiments in how they performed the ṣalât both on a daily basis and in the long-term. Larbi, Aïcha, and Leïla reported that certain prayers were more emotionally demanding than others and that they were sometimes reduced to tears. Individual variation in prayer practices can rep-resent a means of affirming individuals’ beliefs, as can suspending participation in prayer. Albert Piette has argued that a believer’s state of mind is potentially “circumscribed by specific moments” [Piette, 2003: 10]. Asking researchers “not to envision individuals as being enclosed in a long-lasting description or state,” [ibid: 9], Piette urges them to avoid considering indi-viduals as monolithic believers by noting variations in the importance of their “state” at different moments in their lives. My observations of individual variability in the ṣalât confirm Piette’s contention that prayer is non-linear and fluctuates according to times and contexts.

Toukif, for example,13 is a university student who regularly prays and attends Friday prayers at a mosque in central Marseille. He also reported that he prays on a daily basis at home when his class schedule allows it. When work or studies prevent him from isolating himself to pray, he “clusters” his daily prayers in the evening. Samir, 28, a graduate student in geography14 reported “not really practicing” prayer but “catching up” when he is unable to follow the prescribed daily schedule. Clearly, some Muslims pray on an irreg-ular or “sporadic” basis. Larbi argues that worshippers receive “greater” recognition (hassânat) for daily reli-gious observances than for prayers performed “from time to time” or at the mosque when they “have time.” Waïd, a 32-year-old computer scientist whose family is originally from Morocco, has always lived in France. He reported that he performed daily prayers from the age of 13 until he stopped at age 17. Djamal, 28, a

Moroccan who came to France to pursue his studies, prayed for two years after arriving at the University of Aix en Provence but then decided to “drop it.” Individuals suspend or terminate praying because of their studies, work, or the birth of a child. Other par-ticipants such as Bouchra reported that they weren’t practicing “yet.”15 A 21-year-old law student born in France who was working as a secretary in a law office, Bouchra explained that she has not yet reached level of knowledge and commitment required by the ṣalât:

It’s true that being a Muslim has become trendy. I really mean it! It has become fashionable. And praying—what makes me laugh is that… I was working in a driving school and I was used to seeing lots of young men […] wearing traditional robes with a small cap and all that, and then “yeah, now I do the prayer, I’m a Muslim, I don’t eat pork. I’m reconverted.” They read their suras, but they don’t even know what they mean! […] I think that you have to understand what you are saying in a prayer and all that. […] Maybe some day, I’ll start praying. One day, you really decide, but I haven’t been successful in doing that yet. […] Someday I will, though, because I think I have enough faith to do it one day. But I’m not ready yet—maybe because I’m a little too young, but I’m not ready.

Like certain other participants, Fazia, a 28 year-old woman of Tunisian origin working for a non-profit association, asserted that she had not yet felt the “need” for canonical prayer:

Not praying doesn’t prevent me from thinking about God. I think about him all day long. There are people who need to be more observant and respect the five daily prayer times so they don’t deviate and have bad thoughts at the end of the day, like not hurting neighbors or people they meet. That’s what it’s about. […] Also, prayer allows you to […] add a dimension to the things that happen to you everyday and to relativize […] so you don’t panic and you don’t just do whatever. It’s actually a problem, needing that!

Henkel’s studies of Islamic practices in Turkey have shown that prayer is associated with a “paradoxical effect” that is at the intersection between claims of unity inside the Muslim community and increasingly diverse interpretations and techniques. Worshippers adapt their religious practices to their lifestyles, an “adjustment” process that results in variability among Muslim communities in Turkey [2005: 489]. As obser-vations of Muslim prayer in France suggest, variation in practices are also related to the meanings that wor-shippers assign to prayer.

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VIIPrayer Time


�� Prayer Sites and Differentiated Practices

A number of social scientists have examined the organization and institutionalization of faith among Muslims in Europe since the 1980s [Cesari, 1997; Amiraux, 2005; Frégosi, 2008]. After families in France earned the right to be family unification in 1976, a wave of immigration followed. Muslims who were “defini-tively” settled16 found ways to continue worshipping and ask for the construction of mosques. Official group prayers – particularly on Fridays and holy days such as the end of the month-long Ramadan period of fasting (the aïd al-fitr) and sacrifice (the aïd al-adha) – took on the character of “worship ceremonies” in mosques [Gardet, 1970: 123]. This explains why Islamic prayers tend to be associated with mosques in public discourse and publications [Haeri, 2013]. Problems of frequency and scheduling mean that worshippers often perform the ṣalât at home, sometimes alone. This raises ques-tions such as how different prayer spaces coexist in terms of the importance associated with differences in where and how prayers are performed.

There is also a widespread impression that Muslim men and women do not pray together, although obser-vations in homes of religious practices show that fam-ilies do not systematically exhibit a “tendency towards gender separation of worship.” [Geisser, 2009: 27]

Tradition allows Muslims to pray in any location that it is not tainted by impurities17 [Vitray-Meyerovitch, 2003: 61; Göle, 2015: 85]. Rules that define “proper” prayer techniques are typically managed by the faithful themselves and are not associated with specific places. Those who pray are required to perform ablutions in order to achieve ritual purity, dress “properly,” and orient themselves towards the Ka’aba.18

Differing Degrees of Privacy during Ablutions

After puberty, purifying ritual ablution is required for the ṣalât. This takes one of two forms, depending whether an assumed “impurity” is major or minor. Muslim law (fiqh) classifies each source of impurity and includes exceptions that allow ablutions to be per-formed without water (tayammum). The great ablution (ghusl), which requires that the entire body be ritu-ally washed, is required for important impurities such as menstruation or sexual intercourse. Lesser ablution (wuḍû’) involves only certain body parts. Although most of my informants, even those who do not pray,

expressed awareness of these variations, they were not necessarily familiar with the specific techniques involved.

Worshippers sometimes practice wuḍû’ in collec-tive, gender-separate spaces reserved for ablutions in the mosque. Aïcha, for example, performs her ablutions at the mosque when she prays between her Arabic or religion classes. Many small mosques in France are unequipped for ablutions, however, particular “simple” prayer halls, whereas other mosques provide ablution spaces only for men. As a result, women often perform ablutions at home before going to the mosque to pray. Because ghusl requires nudity, it is never practiced at the mosque.

Some important variations reflect cultural and social contexts. Toufik explains that performing ablu-tions in the mosque in the Comoros is perceived as “shameful” for “wandrwadzima,” i.e., participants in ãda, the grand wedding ceremony.19 For Abdel, it is a “ques-tion of tradition” for “notables” with running water in their houses to perform ablutions at home, and sev-eral informants who are originally from the Comoros reported ritually washing themselves in the ocean. Ablutions in the mosque can be interpreted in terms of social distinctions:

The mosque is a sacred place closely tied to community social life whose hierarchies and presences it faithfully reflects […]. Similarly, the roles of every individual in the mosque follow a strict protocol according to the same rules that govern secular occasions. For this reason, the mosque is a pure and simple extension of the social order, of which it is one of the privileged sites of expres-sion and fulfillment [Chouzour, 1994: 25].

Such distinctions may also be seen among Comorians in France, in addition to generational differences. “Elders” who have experienced the ãda do not per-form ablutions at the mosque and prefer to occupy the front rows when praying. Both Toufik and Abdel were critical of the “weight” of “tradition” in their inter-views and were opposed to the notion that “notable” or “wandrwadzima” status justifies a “privileged” place.

Home ablutions appear to be nearly always per-formed in bathrooms or kitchens in France. Wuḍû’ does not demand the same level of privacy as ghusl and can be performed in semi-private, public areas in the mosque, provided that men and women are separated. In homes, although usually performed individually in bathrooms, ablutions can be performed in the presence of other family members. When children are present

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during wuḍû’, the door is often left open. Myriam had even affixed a piece of paper to the mirror above the bathroom sink that depicted prayer movements to familiarize her children with ritual ablutions. Children are not required to practice ablution, but they often learn about it at home before they begin praying themselves [Boursin, 2012]. Ghusl, on the other hand, is always performed alone, typically within the privacy of a bathroom.20

Dressing Properly

How worshippers dress for ṣalât should conform to “good Muslim ethics,” i.e., it should conceal body parts judged to be private in order to ensure modesty. Men and women follow the same rules about concealing particular body parts during fiqh, although there are specific variations among different maḍhabs. Aïcha explained her approach to how prayer:

If I’m wearing trousers… I can’t pray at home in trou-sers. Normally, you shouldn’t wear trousers at all, because it makes you look like a man […]. In the beginning, it was robes for women and trousers for men […]. You have to wear something loose to pray and you’re in front of God, and because in front of God you have to have a tunic down to your knees, because in the Qur’an it is written how the woman must cover herself…

Jamila, 23, a Master’s student of Arabic of Algerian origin practices ṣalât at home and never attends the mosque. She told me that she was not supposed to wear trousers, although she also admitted “it’s not a problem” because “there’s nobody behind me to see me.” For Jamila, “modest” clothing depends more on whether others are present (which explains gender segregation during collective prayers at the mosque—see below). Aïcha began to develop a similar attitude before she realized that worshippers dress primarily for God. I frequently heard this argument about wearing the veil during prayer. Although many women par-ticipants, both young and old, reported not wearing the veil on a daily basis, they all reported wearing it to perform ṣalât, even when they are alone at home. The day-to-day environment of home-based ṣalât does allow certain accommodations, however. They are able to choose comfortable indoor clothing that may not be considered “proper” but is “practical.”

Vestimentary “norms” are thus somewhat flexible in the context of private prayer, including trousers, somewhat tight-fitting tops, and sleeveless t-shirts, but

the veil is thought of as a requirement. After arriving home, Myriam removes her veil if no men from out-side of her family are present, although she does put it back on to pray. Dounia, Myriam’s daughter, covers her hair with a bandana outside the home but removes it after arriving at school. For praying, Dounia wears a hijab because if she wears the veil “in her own way [by wearing a bandana], so you can see my neck and a bit of my ears, but for prayer everything has to be hidden.”

During ṣalât at a mosque, men and women are sep-arated by a partition or curtain or by separate floors. Mixing with men from outside the family is widely perceived as creating the risk of illicit encounters, and none of my informants objected to non-mixing at the mosque. An important factor in gender segregation that stems from the modesty requirement during prayer is the danger of either “showing or seeing the rear end” of a member of the opposite gender when they are prostrate. The increasing use of video screens in wom-en’s prayer rooms in mosques, however, allows them to follow the sermon but also to see prostrated men. During my observations in Marseille, I even witnessed women wearing trousers to attend religion or Arabic classes at the mosque. When they prayed, however, they borrowed jellabas from hangers near the entrance to the women’s prayer room. Women who are unveiled customarily carry a piece of fabric in their purses for emergencies. Arguments for modest dress in men’s presence inside the mosque are largely unfounded, however, because only women and young children are present in women’s prayer rooms. Clearly, there is a stricter dress code in mosques than at home.

Men often wear specific clothing to mosque for Friday prayers and holy days, including tunics (qamis) and head coverings—a taqiyah or chechia for North Africans and kofias for Comorians. Some men wear these garments continuously, just as some women are systematically veiled outside their homes. Choices about dress are also based on esthetic considerations. Soumaya21 proudly displayed the “fine satin clothes” that she brought back for the aïd al-adha prayers from a recent trip to Algeria. Several informants mentioned making themselves “beautiful” or “handsome” to attend services at the mosque. Radhia22 related the first time that she attended prayers:

I was with my father. When she returned from Mecca, my grandmother brought me a hijab with a matching white robe when I was seven and a half or eight years old. And one Friday, I went. My mother doesn’t wear a headscarf

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and she doesn’t go to mosque, or she didn’t then. There were lots of women, and I went to the women’s side and met my father afterwards. And the women said, “Isn’t she beautiful in her pretty little clothes?” I performed two raka‘ât [i.e., two prayer units], and it was fun.

This illustrates the influence of compliments,23 the origins of clothing and the person who offered them, and the occasion on Radhia. Attending to one’s appearance involves more than clothing, however, as exemplified by Mohamed, Myriam’s son, whose par-ents offered him perfume to wear during Ramadan “for when he goes to the mosque.” The criteria for clothing decisions vary according to location—home versus the mosque—and circumstances, such as group or individual prayer or holy days.

Ritual Spaces?

It is difficult for non-Muslims to systematically observe home prayer practices because this requires entering private areas. Although I was unable to observe prayers as closely as I would have preferred, I was occasionally present for home prayers when I was interviewing informants, which provided me with periodic access to daily prayer practices.

Over the course of approximately fifty informant interviews, I learned that ṣalât is most often practiced at home in two types of sites. First are common spaces that also serve for receiving guests such as living rooms. Second are more private spaces such as bedrooms that are accessible only to family members. Using these rooms for religious purposes is temporarily marked by the placement of a prayer rug on the floor. Because it is noticeable in part because involves installing and putting away prayer rugs, ṣalât belongs to a chronology in which worshippers break with their everyday envi-ronments. Every member of many practicing families owns a prayer rug, which they store in their bedrooms24 and take with them to pray in a different room. The rug thus constitutes a mobile virtual space inside the family home. Personal carpets are often brought back from pilgrimages to Mecca (ḥajj) as gifts from parents to mark occasions such as beginning to practice the ṣalât or beginning puberty. The rugs are exclusively used for prayer and their “esthetics” and motifs vary considerably. “Niche” rugs feature an image of a mihrab [an arched wall niche] that helps indicate the direc-tion in which worshippers should orient their rugs. The point or high point of the mihrab’s arch is pointed

towards Mecca and corresponds to the place where the forehead is placed during prostration. “House rugs” are official prayer rugs that do not belong to a family member but are used for group prayers in a common room25 or by guests.

Three participants reported not using prayer carpets because they prayed on bedside rugs or directly on the carpeting. Afida, 12,26 for example, explained “but it’s clean! I don’t walk on the floor with shoes.” I was asked to remove my shoes when I entered most of the homes that I visited. No matter where they are used in the home, or whether they are personal or not, prayer rugs provide a means of delimiting a specific a space that is free of impurities.

Bedrooms and living rooms are not the only domestic rooms used for ṣalât. While criteria vary, a family with children generally prays without gender separation inside their living space if at least one child participates in the ṣalât. One family member, usually a father or brother, leads the prayer, placing himself (or herself) in front of a line formed by the others and pronouncing the prayer. If the father does not pray, mothers can lead the prayer, in which case she places herself at the center of the line rather than in front of it. I have also wit-nessed parents praying together in the same line—boys between 14 and 15 rarely practice ṣalât at the mosque but do so more often at home. If only a mother and child pray daily and other family members are present, it can take place in the parents’ or child’s bedroom. When only a single member of a family is performing the ṣalât and several people occupy the common areas, they typically pray in their bedrooms, even when it is the father. Although not systematically, some rooms in the home are preferred because of a calm “atmosphere” or furnishings. Family members occasionally practice ṣalât in the living room while other family members are watching television, however. This demonstrates that the criteria for determining the uses of space inside the home include status—parents versus children, elders versus younger children—as well as gender and the number of practicing Muslims living in the same home. Family ties thus make it possible to share reli-gious privacy, and the home prayer space is not unique or even culture- or gender-bound. Like mosques, the use of homes depends on availability, timeframes, and family members’ preferences and habits.

The question remains, however, whether the “sanc-tity” of the space itself determines how it is used or how attendees dress in the mosque. Clearly, dogma and usage place a priority on “purity,” including rules that

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require the removal of shoes on entering the prayer hall and exclude menstruating women.27 Beyond the separation of men and women during worship cere-monies and the growing number of dedicated prayer spaces for women in France, however, ethnographic studies reveal that the most important factor in ren-dering a location “sacred” is temporality. Indeed, I observed diverse spaces—the women’s prayer hall in the mosque in Aix is transformed into a gender-mixed space between prayers, the courtyard of the mosque in Marseille that is customarily open to the public and mixed, becomes exclusively male and private when it is used on religious days as an extension of the prayer hall [Benveniste et Boursin, 2014].

Gender separation during prayers in mosques during ṣalât is uncommon inside homes, where degrees of kinship and privacy eliminate the risk of illicit encoun-ters. This is also true of habits of dress inside homes, as seen in the case of Jamila, who felt no risk that she might appear to be “immodest” when she was alone or with family members. Such differences are not inherent in these spaces themselves—sacred in the case of the mosque, and profane in the case of homes—but are associated with particular branches of Islam. Katia Boissevain has recorded similar observations in Tunisia, where she witnessed the transposition into a private worship space created in the sanctuary (zâwiya) of the thirteenth-century Saint Saïda Manoubiya: “In fact, it seems that the fear of symbolic contamination has no role inside a familial, private context.” [2002: 8].

Studying ṣalât in France enriches our understanding of the range of situations, cultural references, and reli-gious observances and practices exhibited by worship-pers within a specific orthopraxis. Detailed observations of the ordinary daily lives of worshippers reveals highly variable prayer practices. Rather than a uniform, five-times-daily ritual, prayer varies according to individ-uals’ lifestyles, environments, and schedules.

Various ways of behaving in different contexts potentially cause orthopraxes to compete with each other. An orthopraxis becomes unique when it func-tions as a hegemonic norm suggested by others. As a personal practice, at one level orthopraxis represents a goal, such as when worshippers are aware that they do not systematically participate “fully in praying” or “don’t do things correctly.” At another level, orthop-raxis represents an ideal, although prayer practices can vary diachronically in the course of an individual’s life. In adapting to a “norm,” individuals differentiate their practices synchronically in terms of dress and gender segregation during prayer. In addition to variability—which calls to mind the common impression that Islamic prayers rigidly follow narrowly defined spec-ifications, including gender separation and strict dress codes—analyzing actors’ actual experiences indicate significant differences in the intensity of individuals’ personal religious beliefs. As a result, even partici-pants’ religious doubts occasionally emerge when a researcher focuses on different methods of affirming beliefs instead of exclusively focusing on content. �

Notes

1. In the sense of “enacted believing” [Hervieu-Léger, 1993: 105]. The nominal use of the verb suggests a dynamic process that “necessitates taking into consideration the belief and the act, the belief and the gesture” [Aubin-Boltanski et al., 2014: 207]. For discus-sion about the use of the term “croyance” [belief] in the singular or plural, and “croire” [to believe], see Gérard Lenclud [1990], Roberte Hamayon [2006], and Anne-Sophie Lamine [2010], who cite foundational texts by Jean Pouillon [1979] and Michel de Certeau [1985].

2. These rituals of belonging, which are called legal schools, form interpretive currents (maḍhab) of religious law (sharia) to which Muslims refer for their religious practices.

3. Belonging to Islam in France is often assumed to be associated with cultural origins,

although the 1978 law on Information and Freedom forbids any attempt to count groups based on ethnic or religious belonging.

4. The expression was used by Yamina, 24, of Comorian origin and enrolled in a Master’s program in Arabic at the time of our interview. The names of my informants were modified for purposes of confidentiality.

5. Ways of behaving are established according to Muslim law, fiqh, which defines temporality, i.e., time—which varies every days depending on the sun’s position—and the frequency of execution, the duration, and the number, raka‘ât, —which varies from 2 to 4 depending on time of day—gestures, with postures and utterances using formulas. See table: Simplified operating regulations for ṣalât. Example of a prayer with two raka‘ât.

6. In France for five years, he lived in Morocco for eighteen years. He is the oldest

brother of three children and his father is a rich merchant in Casablanca.

7. Abdel arrived in France to study and became an educator. When he was a child, he took classes in a shioni or Qur’anic school.

8. A housekeeper for twenty years for the same person, Aïcha and her 12 year-old son, whom she has raised alone since he was eight. The first time she entered a mosque was in 1999.

9. Tradition, with a capital T, refers to the various sources of the fiqh, i.e., the Prophetic Tradition, sunna, which is established based on the deeds and gestures of the Prophet Mohamed, the hadiths, and the Qur’an.

10. Leïla has a five year-old child and another who is two from different fathers. She converted on her own first when she was twenty years old, and a second time before an imam after her second marriage to a Turkish man, the

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father of her first son. She was twenty-two years old at the time. She then chose the name Leïla. She presently has custody of her children and is a salesperson looking for work.

11. Myriam is of Algerian origin and was born in France. She has a diploma as a sales rep-resentative. When she was 22 she married and left the Paris suburbs, where she lived with her parents, to move to Bourges. At the time of this study she had four children—three daughters 17, 12, and 5 and a son of 15. The family reg-ularly attended mosque for prayers because the children were taking religious classes.

12. The term used by Mounir, by which he was referring to young people who prefer a “conservative” form of Islam, a way of sig-nifying Wahabism that seeks to “eradicate ille-gitimate innovations of ritual practices (bid’a)” [Bowen, 1994: 79].

13. Toufik was 25 at the time of the interview and was a student in the School of Economic and Social Administration in Marseille. Originally from the Comoros, he studied in a shioni.

14. Originally from Morocco, he arrived in France when he was 13.

15. Her parents were of Moroccan origin and died when she was 9. She has three older brother and two older sisters.

16. By contrast with the expression “Islamic Transplant” [Dassetto et Bastenier, 1984].

17. Numerous scholarly and religious publications exist regarding rules related to impurities. For more accurate information regarding the various descriptions of filth, see a synthesis by Georges-Henri Bousquet [1950]. Please note nevertheless that even here a woman during her menstrual cycle or who has bleeding following childbirth does not observe the ṣalât.

18. The Kaaba is a draped cubic structure inside the Sacred Mosque in Mecca that holds “black stone” that is the holiest shrine of the Islamic faith. Muslims must orient themselves towards the Kaaba when praying to Allah. Pilgrims during their ḥajj must circle or cir-cumambulate the Kaaba seven times; each turn is called the tawaf.

19. Customary marriage and rite of pas-sage that provides access to elevated social status; those who have undergone the ãda are author-ized to speak in public.

20. Caroline Fournier recalls in an article about public baths that when the great ablu-tion, the ghousl, is performed for an important purification it is not performed in the baths. She specifies, however, that a second ghousl can be performed in public baths: “an ablution recommended to the faithful before different moments of their religious lives: Fridays, holy days, and during such passages as pilgrimages or marriages” [Fournier, 2011: 341].

21. Soumaya, 33, is French of Algerian origin and is a child-care worker with two chil-dren.

22. Radhia, 23, works as a receptionist for a non-profit association call “Point Service aux Particuliers” [Service Point for People]. She has always lived in France and has taught in a mosque in Marseille.

23. One often hears praise of how chil-dren are dressed in the mosque.

24. In families, the mother keeps her prayer rug on a chair in the living room, although it is agreed that it belongs to her.

25. According to a hadîth, group prayer is preferable to individual prayer, because it increases the faithful’s (man or woman) hassanât [benefit] by a factor of between 25 and 27.

26. Myriam daughter and next-to-youngest child, she takes classes at the mosque on Sundays. Her mother was born in France and is of Algerian origin, like her father.

27. Certain books or guides to Sunni, Malekite, or Shafi’ite religious practices explain that menstruating women can be present for the aïd al-adha prayer and can perform the takbir (recitation of the formula “God is great”) although they are forbidden from actively par-ticipating in the ṣalât [Khafague, 2000: 54]. It should be noted that some religious movements forbid access to the mosque for menstruating women during aïd hold days.

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RÉSUMÉ

A l’heure de la priere : entre pratiques et experimentationsCet article étudie les variations des pratiques de la prière islamique canonique, ṣalât, chez les musulmans de France. L’auteure

entend montrer, d’une part, comment les situations d’exécution – individuelle ou collective, domiciliaire ou communautaire – « agissent » sur la pratique et, d’autre part, comment cette pratique est finalement loin d’être continue et linéaire dans la vie de l’observant. En effet, elle peut s’interrompre ou se suspendre, tout comme son expérimentation quotidienne peut révéler des variations du croire.

Mots-clefs : Prière. Islam. Pratiques religieuses. Variations. Croire.

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ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

Zur Gebetsstunde: zwischen Praktiken und ExperimentenDieser Artikel studiert die verschiedenen Ausübungsarten des islamischen kanonischen Gebets; dem ṣalât, bei den Muslimen

Frankreichs. Die Autorin will auf der einen Seite aufzeigen, wie die Situationen – individuell oder im Kollektiv, zu Hause oder in der Gesellschaft – sich auf die Gebetsausübung „auswirken“, und auf der anderen Seite nachweisen, wie weit die Ausübung davon entfernt ist kontinuierlich oder linear im Leben des Beobachters zu sein. In der Tat kann sie abgebrochen oder unterbro-chen werden, ebenso wie das tägliche Experimentieren Variationen des Glaubens aufdecken kann.

Stichwörter: Gebet. Islam. Religiöse Praktiken. Variationen. Glauben.

RESUMEN

A la hora de la oración : entre practica y experimentaciónEste articulo estudia las variaciones en la práctica de la oración, ṣalât, de los musulmanes de Francia. Por una parte, la autora trata de

demostrar como las situaciones de oración – individual o colectiva, casera o comunitaria – « actúan » sobre la práctica y, por otra parte, como esta práctica no es finalmente continua y lineal en la vida del observante. En efecto, esta práctica puede interrumpirse o suspen-derse, así como su experimentación diaria puede revelar las variaciones de la creencia.

Palabras-clave : Oración. Islam. Prácticas religiosas. Variaciones. Creencia.

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Prayer time: Between practice and experimentation

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